


Of Stormy Nights and Lonely Hearts

by TheProfoundSilence



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Christmas, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt Dean Winchester, Pre Canon, Stanford Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28190730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheProfoundSilence/pseuds/TheProfoundSilence
Summary: On a lonely Christmas, Dean reflects.
Relationships: Dean Winchester and John Winchester, dean winchester and sam winchester
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Of Stormy Nights and Lonely Hearts

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, dear readers. The last few days I was looking through my laptop and found several finished, unpublished works. Seriously, it was like finding gold! I debated long and hard on whether I should post it, but then I decided not to over-think it too much. It would be amazing if someone liked it and nothing last if it wasn't a success too. So, without further of my musings...

It's quiet. Not like the calm before the storm that warned you of impending doom, rather the utter and sheer quiet after it. The quiet before the storm makes you apprehensive, tense, maybe even fearful. But, Dean decided, the aftermath was worse.

There was still time to do something, prepare, get out the freaking gear before the storm hit. There was no time to do anything now. There was just Silence with a capital S that suffocated the survivors reminding them of the lost ones.

Or rather the lonely survivor, because dad left too, didn't he?

And they had lost, they had lost a lot. Dean had lost his brother, John had lost a son, and to something John had never even foreseen (Stanford is now a four letter word in their vocabulary, which is ironic because that four letter word had always been a part of their lives), because John may be a calculating strategist, but he was often blind to things right in front of him. Sam and John had that in common. They had a lot in common.

Like leaving Dean behind. He cursed the burning behind his eyes. God, he was turning into a pansy. _Suck it up,_ he told himself. Except it didn't have the same effect it usually did.

It only worked if he did it for his little brother and father, so they wouldn't have to worry about him on top of everything.

Well, stellar job there, Winchester. Now they certainly aren't worrying about you.

He pulled over to the side, and leaned against the steering, resting his forehead on the cooling surface. He let his tears slip out, let his frustration and anger leek out.

His father had once told him that there was no shame in crying, because it was good to let your feelings out before they drowned you, before it gave your enemies the upper hand. The young child had never forgotten the words, but had learned well to never show such vulnerability in front of enemies, strangers and his father and brother.

It was all for him, and for any friend he ever chose. He never did. He never had. It was only him.

Days faded to weeks and weeks to months. It's incomprehensible how much time has passed until he sits alone in a lonely motel room, surprised at the white Christmas, not because it was white, but because it was Christmas.

He would barely even have known had the young spritely couple behind the counter not happily greeted him a Merry Christmas Eve when he checked in last night.

It had been so surprising that he had been unable to cover the startled look on his face. And had the pleasure to see the sympathy and pity on their faces.

He had covered his shame and embarrassment, and moved on. And if he was grateful for the couple's heart-warming hospitality after months of not talking to his little brother, after months of nothing but cold, plain texts of jobs all over God's green Earth but not a friendly word from his father, after going stir-crazy by not being called his real name, Dean Michael Winchester, in those god-damned dreaded months, but most of all, not being able to let his guard down, not being able to fall back on someone he trusts, he thinks that no-one but the couple had to know.

He went out that very night, outside in the cold Christmas Eve, dug up a grave all alone in the wind and the snow, covered his own back and guided one more stranded spirit to the afterlife. Dean thinks it's a little pathetic how he's starting to sympathize with ghosts (for fuck's sake!) now. It had only been a few months since he's been alone and he's already going a little crazy. Decades alone would make anyone snap like a god-damned rubber band.

Still, their loneliness could not mean other's demise and thus, like all rabid dogs had to be put down. He'd do the same for himself, if it came down to it.

The next day, he sat alone in his motel room, fiddling with his phone. He flipped it open, then shut, then open again. Click, clack went the phone, but it didn't ring. Why would it? They all wanted something. But, John and Sam had the tenacity of a predator when it came to their prey, their goals.

Because John may be obsessed with revenge, but Sam… Sam was obsessed with his picture-perfect normal.

Their lives had been less than conventional yes, and Sam had found his outlet in something that was denied to him. Sam always did it, Dean thought viciously, peek into the other side and see all the good stuff with none of the bad. The grass is always greener on the other side, it got Sam every time. Every damn time.

When they were little, he had always wanted what Dean had, robbing the child of what little he did have, always demanding, always wanting.

Dean hadn't understood what it was his younger brother was looking for then: happiness, satisfaction, something else? But now Dean understood that even Sam didn't know what it is he wants out of life.

And he would never be happy unless one day he woke up one day and decided he wanted to be. Happiness, Dean had learned, was not a target, could not be. It was the million little things you shared and gained on your journey. It was the small things.

And his father and brother were never satisfied. John had it all once, the white picket fence, beautiful wife and healthy sons, but the young boy in Dean remembered that it hadn't stopped him from leaving then, either.

The millions of fights, the hundreds of ways his life wasn't perfect then. Maybe this, maybe that, but never good enough. Until the night of the fire when that life burned down and John woke up and decided that his life wasn't perfect now, but it definitely was then.

Sam had inherited that penchant for self-destruction, that need for more. It hadn't always been there in him. Sammy was so easy to please, smiled so big and laughed so hard. But, somewhere in him, Sam had emulated his father, had grown up to lose his best parts, rather hide them, in a world that would've broken that softness.

Of course, it still shone out of him.

And of course, Dean still loved them both. Which was why he sat alone in a dingy motel room, and called the familiar numbers. Sam was happy and sweet and _normal._ Safe.

He didn't pick up, not that Dean had really expected that his brother would.

His voice-mail sound relaxed and calm.

_Hey, this is Sam Winchester. You know what to do._

Hearing it, hearing him like that was bitter sweet. There were a million things he wanted to say. He made do with a 'Merry Christmas, little brother.' And hung up before the tears slipped.

He called dad. Another voice-mail. This one was cold and gruff, rough around the edges. He informed him of the job done, and quietly wished him a Merry Christmas.

There were a million people he could call, hunter friends and the people he'd met and saved over the years, they'd all smile and greet him well. They'd all even welcome him into their homes with big, wide excited grins, and he could. He could do it, and even enjoy it too.

But not today. Today, Dean slipped out of his jacket and boots and slipped under the covers. Maybe New Year's, but not today, today was his day of weakness. He slept.

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments. Please do drop one if you like this fic and want more like these ;)


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